


but you'll always feel like you tripped and fell

by Analyse (D_Willims)



Series: it'll still be two days till we say we're sorry [4]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, I Heard A Rumor There's No Incest, It's Still Apocalypse Day, Luther Is a Good Brother, Or He's Trying At Least, Vanya is a good sister, author hasn't read the comics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-12-31 22:24:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18323150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_Willims/pseuds/Analyse
Summary: The world doesn't end. Nothing happens. Everything changes.





	but you'll always feel like you tripped and fell

**Author's Note:**

> Fic titles from "Steady As She Goes" by The Raconteurs.
> 
> Series title from "One Week" by the Bare Naked Ladies.

The door to Luther’s room is open. And it’s not necessarily suspicious. Luther was, after all, the one that had started leaving his door open. When they were young and Dad would take him away for hours at a time and he’d come back with bloodied knuckles and broken fingers. He was quiet when he went to his room but he’d left the door open.

And then it had just been the thing they did. Claustrophobia runs in the family.

He’s kept the door since he came back from the moon—and, Jesus, has that really only been a week since they buried Dad? Nine days, specifically, adjusting for time travel. Vanya feels like she’s lived a lifetime. She feels _old_.

Vanya screws up her courage, sucks in a breath, and steps across the threshold.

When she’s inside, she understands better why the door has been shut. The mirror hanging on the wall next to the door is cracked in its frame.

She hasn’t been able to shake the image of Luther tearing himself free of the chandelier. Even in the shadows, or maybe _because_ of the shadows, his body had looked twisted and inhuman. Monstrous. He’d been so careful to avoid Diego when he ran up the stairs, disappeared behind the bedroom door.

If Dad had done that to her, she’d break her mirrors, too.

There’s a model airplane laying in pieces on the desk, too. A bottle of glue sits next to it. Vanya steps closer, trails her fingers over a patch job on the wing. It’s clumsy and so unlike the meticulous care that Luther put into building the models. Her heart aches and her hand falls to her side.

Turning, Vanya’s gaze settles on the real prize she was after. She crosses the room in two strides and kneels down to flip through the records. Luther had been the one that bought the record player, but some of Vanya’s best—maybe some of her only good—memories were afternoons spent in the pawn shop across the street or the music store down the street looking through records with her sister and brothers.

“It’s, uh, a little on the nose, don’t you think?” There’s a sort of humor to Luther’s voice. And she hasn’t heard him joke since they were fifteen.

Vanya nearly jumps out of her skin and whirls around to look up at him. “Jesus _Christ_ , Luther.”

“Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” The slight twinkle in Luther’s eye dulls instantly and he sits down heavily on his bed. Close to her and far away all at once. “Or to imply that you…” He cuts himself off with a wince. Dad’s hard-edged cynicism has been stripped away and now it’s just Luther, who can’t even bring himself to say the words. “It was just a bad joke.”

Quietly, Vanya looks down. She turns the record over in her hands. A worn R.E.M. single that Klaus had bought because the title had sounded nihilistic but had been disappointingly bouncy in the end. He’d liked the B-Side, though. And the single had been one of Luther’s favorites.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it,” she reads, traces her fingers over the words. Somewhere in the house, a clock strikes nine. She’s missing her solo. They decided together— _all_ of them—that this was for the best but it doesn’t take the sting away. Vanya had finally fought for a place in the world, and the world had kicked her while she was down.

The world _isn’t_ ending, though. Outside of his window, the moon still shines bright.

Something’s still ending. Vanya can feel it in her bones.

She offers a tentative, faltering smile.

“I feel fine.” The humor is back if hesitant, fleeting. Luther is struggling to keep the smile on his face as much as she is.

“You know what?” Vanya rises to her feet and slides the record from its sleeve. She places it on the record player, drops the needle into place. “So do I.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just a snippet to celebrate the Day of the Apocalypse That Wasn't. It really doesn't fit in any of the other stuff I'm working on for this series but I thought it was important so here we are.


End file.
